Exploiting Hollywood 1980

  Chapter 1015 Sense of Rhythm

   "Oh... oh..."

In Giants Stadium in New York, Ronald gathered about two dozen extras to play spectators in one side seat, surrounded by Billy Crystal and Bruno Kirby, who played his buddy Jayce .

  In a place that cannot be captured by the camera lens, a huge speaker is playing various live sounds from the recorded game.

  The filming conditions given by the Giants are still very strict. They cannot interfere with the broadcast of the game, and can only shoot during the commercial broadcast of the broadcast. And it's impossible for the audience to fully cooperate. With the short shooting time, if the audience finds out and watch the movie, the whole shooting will be ruined.

  So, Ronald thought about it and came up with the Roger Corman method. Let the second group take some bird's-eye shots of the game, and shots of the audience making waves on their seats.

  The current shooting is to use a medium shot to subtly integrate the protagonists Harry and Jess into the lively atmosphere of watching the game when they chat about Harry’s divorce while watching the Giants game.

   "Oh..." Another sound came, and the group performers all stood up one by one. Harry and Jess also stood up, making the Mexican wave that is very popular in sports games.

  Different from the surrounding audience who were eagerly paying attention to the situation in the arena, the focus of Harry and Jess was not on the game, but on the dialogue between them.

  Harry tells the story of his wife Helen's carefully planned divorce. One day after Harry's birthday, Helen packed her luggage in the morning and told Harry that she no longer loved him.

   What was even more irritating was that immediately after Helen said this, three workers from the moving company came to ring the doorbell. After repeated questioning, Harry learned that his wife had made an appointment to move a week ago.

  After asking why he didn't bring it up sooner and instead made a surprise attack, Helen told Harry that she just didn't want Harry to have a bad birthday.

  Helen said that she could move to share the apartment vacated by a friend, and they counted as separation during this period. Harry didn't believe these words, and quietly followed the moving company. Sure enough, Helen ended up going to the home of a tax lawyer. She had already moved on, and the man was still bald!

   This is a scene designed by Ronald. When everyone is watching the game enthusiastically, Harry is the one who can't blend in at all and is lonely and sad.

  The saddest feeling of sadness and loneliness is not crying alone at home, but in a place where everyone is busy, pretending to be the same as everyone, but actually closing the wounded heart.

  This filming method does not directly give the audience a feeling of loneliness, but creates a scene beyond reality, allowing them to feel that Harry is so pitiful.

  In real life, it is impossible for us to discuss these relationship issues with our friends when the audience is enthusiastically acting up. The decibels on the scene make this kind of discussion impossible.

But this is a romantic comedy movie, which allows some plots to slightly exceed the boundaries of life (LargerthanLife), and the audience will not delve into these details. state of mind, and feel comfortable.

   "Cut!"

   Ronald is very satisfied with the performance of the two actors. He took a few more shots, and asked the extras to try a few more cheers and waves of people to accumulate material for editing.

   As for the actual game scene, and the audience cheering for the Giants attack on the field, Ronald was handed over to Emile Adolino to shoot.

  Emil has already completed the first cut of "The Reborn Pretty Man", and came to help Ronald take charge of the second set of shooting. It was a bit difficult for the ordinary second set of directors to shoot this kind of scene, so he took the initiative to help complete a few scenes.

   Ronald took Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan to shoot the next two-person scene. On the shooting list, the next few weeks will be the rivalry between the two.

  Harry and Sally, two old friends who both faced breaking up with their long-time partners, meet again by chance. This part of the play will allow the audience to accumulate a good impression of the two protagonists when they watch it. They are both sincere to each other and sincerely accompany each other when they are sad.

   Therefore, the two talked about everything, on the phone, met on weekends, listened to each other's venting, etc...

  The relationship between the two quickly became intimate, but without the desire between men and women, they became rare close friends of the opposite sex.

  …

   "I still feel out of sync here, we have to reshoot..."

   On the screen, it is necessary to show that the two men and women have a crush on each other, so that the audience can feel that they are a pair full of tacit understanding. The most important thing is not the expression, nor the lines, but the synchronization of the rhythm of the actors.

  Humans are born with a talent for distinguishing between opposite sexes that they like. Using intuition to judge whether two men and women have an intimate relationship is also very accurate. It relies on a kind of mirror neuron in our brains, which can perceive and imitate the rhythm of the other party.

  Maybe it's the gap of a few tenths of a second, the synchronization of the two people's movements, the intimacy and closeness of the relationship, and all the audience can feel it from the screen.

   Moreover, this is not a TV series, but a big-screen movie. This kind of synchronization between movements, expressions, lines, and even postures has been magnified countless times.

  Whether this "When Harry Met Sally" can be loved by the audience depends to a large extent on whether the two protagonists are in tune with each other for a few tenths of a second.

   What was filmed today was a scene where Harry and Sally confided in each other before going to bed at night. This kind of phone shooting scene started from the "Pillow Talk" starring the famous actress Doris Day in the late 1950s and the male star Rock Hudson who died of a mysterious virus a few years ago. )” began, there was a standard shooting method.

  It is to split the screen left and right, and then separately shoot the picture of each character holding a phone, and finally use the editing method to stitch the close-ups of the two characters into one screen.

   Ronald also adopted this method at the beginning, shooting a front and back shot without an over-the-shoulder shot. While Meg Ryan was lying in bed on the phone, Billy Crystal was standing across the room talking to her, and vice versa.

  But with this method of shooting in two, there will always be subtle differences between the two performances. As mentioned earlier, after splicing together, the synchronization of the two leading actors in the dimension of a few tenths of a second was broken.

   When Ronald was watching the samples, he found that he could not achieve complete synchronization, so he could only reshoot this part.

  The set is very props department, seize the weekend of shooting, and build the same bed and floor in the studio as the interior of the apartment where Harry and Sally live.

   Fortunately, Ronald’s previous filming went smoothly, and this reshoot didn’t waste too much of his time. Meg Ryan went back to reunite with her boyfriend, while Ronald spent the weekend with his family at his apartment on Fifth Avenue.

   Back to Staten Island wasting time, so both Aunt and Donna came to Manhattan for dinner with Ronald.

   "Ding Dong..."

  The doorbell rang, and Ronald opened the door to see that it was Douglas Jr.

   "Why are you here again?" This guy has been running to his family gatherings recently.

   "Donna, Karen..." Little Douglas greeted the two and pulled Ronald aside.

   "Did you see the campaign ad tonight?"

"no, what happened?"

   It was still Donna, took the remote control, turned on the TV, and tuned to the NBC New York local channel.

   "Did Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis veto minimum sentences for drug dealers (certain crimes have minimum sentences, and judges can't sentence lower sentences)?

   Was the death penalty vetoed (stopped in Massachusetts)?

  His "revolving door" policy, is it to let those felons who cannot get parole for life go home for the weekend?

  Since this policy was adopted, a total of 268 serious criminals have escaped from prison. Many of them committed rape, wounding and other serious crimes outside, and some are still being hunted down.

  Dukaschi said that he wants to do for the people of the United States what he has done for Massachusetts.

  Americans don’t want to do this…”

   "Is this true? Letting these non-bailable felons go home for the weekend?" Even Aunt Karen felt outrageous.

  Ronald and Douglas Jr. went to the study and called George Jr.

Little George on the other end of the phone told the truth, "This is Jeb's final attack. In fact, it's not that simple. This policy was not passed by Dukakis, and he abolished this policy before the primary election. .

   It is estimated that it is similar to the previous attack and will not have any effect. The communication-themed ad led by Roger Ailes and I will go live next week. Then you can see how your strategy helped my father win the election. "

   "Let me just say, how could Dukakis be so stupid? What if the murderers are released for the weekend and they go off to commit other felonies?"

   "Indeed, the governor shouldn't be so stupid", and Doug Jr. thought so too.

  It was getting late, so Douglas Jr. found a room in Ronald's double-storey villa for the night.

  Early the next morning, Ronald, who got up early, ate Aunt Karen's loving breakfast. The family's love turned into a familiar taste, which made Ronald very happy, much more comfortable than those expensive breakfasts in five-star luxury hotels.

   "Good morning, Ronnie,...Good morning, Doug..." Donna, who was yawning, also got up for breakfast, and greeted little Douglas who had just woken up across the corridor.

   "George and Dukakis on crime:"

  The morning news on TV reached the advertising period, and a campaign advertisement appeared on the screen. The majority of American voters saw this advertisement for the first time.

   "George takes a tough-on-crime stance and supports the death penalty for first-degree murder.

   Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, but also gives murderers weekend getaway cards…

  One of them was called Willie Horton..."

  A typical mugshot of a black man with a thick chin appeared on TV. It looks like it was taken when I was arrested and imprisoned.

Ronald, as a photographer, also saw that the contrast of this photo was adjusted in the darkroom, and the black shadows were deliberately enhanced, so that the person named Willie Horton, with a darker complexion and a full beard, appeared some aggressive features.

"Willie Horton killed a worker at a gas station, stabbed him 19 times, he should have been in prison for life, but Dukakis gave him a weekend card ten times, he took advantage of the weekend and escaped to the Maryland, where he attacked a couple, stabbed the husband, raped the wife, that's Dukakis' attitude to crime..."

  Ronald and Douglas Jr. looked at each other... Is there really such a stupid thing?

   "This is disgusting, how can such criminals let them leave prison on weekends without supervision? This kind of murder is a human right, so who will protect the rights of that poor wife, and what about women's safety?"

   Now even Donna, who originally supported the governor of Massachusetts, couldn't help but oppose him.

   "I'm going to Washington, D.C....", Douglas Jr. knew that this was a moment of major change, so he quickly took a sip of orange juice and took his coat to leave.

   "Here, take the sandwich and eat it..." Donna handed over a sandwich made by her mother.

   "Is this true?" Ronald then asked his personal lawyer Lindsay Dole to confirm.

"Yes, what happened last year, Maryland finally sentenced Willie Horton to two life sentences, and rejected the extradition request of Massachusetts. This incident actually had a lot of repercussions in the legal circle, involving extradition between states Jurisprudence, but the public did not know much about it before.

  Only the "Lawrence Eagle" in Massachusetts reported the case at length, and finally won the Pulitzer Prize..."

  Ronald hung up the phone. It turned out that Dukakis canceled the arrangement for felons to go home on weekends during the primary election because of these Eagle newspaper reports.

   Now George Sr.'s strategy is likely to work, and Dukaski's approval rating may plummet. But little George is going to be unhappy, he is now going to be significantly behind Jeb in the competition for favor.

  However, Ronald put himself in the situation and thought about it. Once this kind of thing is fermented, the opponent's approval rate will drop, but it is still uncertain whether Old George's approval rate will rise or not.

  Attacking the other party can only lower his approval rating and make voters who might have voted for Dukakis stop voting. To win, you have to win over voters who are likely to vote for George Sr.

   After all, the general election in America does not require voters to vote. These offensive ads affect voters who are hesitant about whether to vote for Dukakis. Likely, if they don't vote for Dukakis, they won't vote for George Sr.

   Ronald didn't have time to care about the ups and downs of the election, and continued to shoot the re-arranged bedtime phone scene.

  This time, Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan were lying on their respective beds, separated by a wooden board, and a camera was aimed at the two of them.

  Both of them are talking on the phone, but they can actually hear each other's voices.

   "Ingrid Bergman, she's a low-maintenance girl". Harry said.

  Sally and Harry, both suffering from insomnia after their partner left them, are discussing Ingrid Bergman's role while watching the late-night TV show "The Spy."

   "Low maintenance?" Sally didn't understand.

   "Yeah, there are two kinds of girls, one is very demanding, and one is not very demanding."

   "Is Ingrid Bergman low maintenance?"

   "absolutely low maintenance"

   "Then what kind am I?" Sally wondered.

  "You are the worst kind, it is high cost, but you think it is low cost."

   "Really? I don't think so" Sally didn't believe it.

   "Don't you think so? I want a chef's salad, but without the standard dressing, and I want Italian vinegar and olive oil, but don't put them in first, put them on the side of the salad..."

"Um…"

  …

  The two actors no longer perform separately, but enter the camera at the same time, which makes it easy for the two to be very synchronized in rhythm. The two talked about their emotions, and also talked about why Ingrid Bergman didn't stay with Humphrey Bogart at the end. Sally's views have changed a lot from ten years ago. She no longer thinks that Ingrid Bergman should be the first lady of the Czech Republic, but should be with her beloved.

"Good night…"

  The two actors put down the phone almost at the same time, and a smile appeared on Meg Ryan's face.

   "Cut!"

   "This is perfect", Ronald was very satisfied with this "low-tech" shooting method, and the rhythm of the two finally matched.

  (end of this chapter)